up

At times I feel like we are living with a Martian in the house. A small, opinionated one. The kind that you have to explain everything to because it's completely brand new. These are the kinds of things I think about when I hear myself saying, "There's this thing called Christmas, where everyone gets presents, like a birthday, except there's a big man with a white beard, and his name is Santa Claus," or "It's a bat, like a black thing that flies, not like a fly, and not like the thing that you hit the ball with," or "You use the spoon to put the food in your mouth, not down your shirt." Maybe I'm the one making it all so hard to understand.

Anyway, Luke has discovered a new dimension, which is anything higher than he is. All he wants to do is climb up, and then if all environmental conditions are deemed suitable, jump down. I swear he has spent more than an hour in the past week carefully thumbing through the clothes in my closet, not because it's interesting, but because it's the only thing available to do while standing on the stepstool in there. And the jumping-off-the-hamper game seemed like fun until someone fell off and bumped his nose, and then - wait - come to think of it, it was still fun after that! More hamper jumping!

Today Luke's food also moved into a different dimension, which is to say, up and not in his stomach anymore. Wait, you say, why is Jeanne not totally freaked out or in the dumps or somehow blaming herself? Well, it happened at about 3 pm and Silvia cleaned it all up and didn't call me, which was probably a good thing, because by the time I got home he was all fresh and just about the happiest guy around. I suppose there was something gnawing at him, which would explain why he couldn't sleep last night, and why at 3:30 am he was rolling around moaning. Either way, he seems to have purged himself of the offending substance and gone back to cheery equilibrium.

Then there's the big Martian in the house, also known as Dave, whom I continue to marvel at every day. How can he work almost round the clock, manage our finances and refinancing, manage all of our home renovations, manage Luke's bedtime routine every night, muddle through our sad and confusing decisions about child care, and yet still lie down on the living room floor at the end of the day with a huge smile on his face and make me laugh? Is he just built with some different sort of chemical composition? Do they sell it in drug form? Because I think I should be taking some. Really.

Or maybe the two of them have it right and I'm the one from Mars who just doesn't get it. I've got these feelings about the childcare dilemma that are so intense and raw, but when I try to explain them I can't even get them out of my mouth. It's like I want to have this liberating feeling like he's off enjoying himself at childcare/preschool...and yet I don't want to let go of him or have to turn my back and walk away. I went from feeling sort of excited about preschool to having total sit-up-in-bed anxiety about how bad it would be, and the discussion has only just begun.

But tonight, after the liberating vomit, and the moderately confusing Christmas explanation, and the quality time spent in my closet, Luke went to bed happy. For now, that's enough to make me think that things are looking up.